Bret Hart's ugly and unforgettable departure from the WWE in 1997 has been well-documented throughout the years.
Hart, one of the WWE's premier superstars during the '90s, signed a 20-year contract with the company in 1996. But Vince McMahon began to experience financial problems amid the Monday Night Wars with WCW.
Unable to pay the contract, he talked to Hart about joining WCW. The latter reluctantly agreed to do so, but there was one more major order of business.
Hart had to defend his WWE World Heavyweight Championship one last time against archrival Shawn Michaels at Survivor Series, which took place in Montreal, Quebec. The plan was for Hart to defeat Michaels in his home country before dropping the title on the ensuing episode of Raw.
Of course, that's not what actually happened. McMahon double-crossed Hart by ordering referee Earl Hebner to call for the bell after Michaels locked in the Sharpshooter finisher - even though Hart never tapped out.
With that, the Montreal Screwjob was born. Hart confronted McMahon and knocked him out backstage before leaving the WWE. He wouldn't return to the company for another 13 years.
For many years, it looked as though Hart would never fully make peace with McMahon, Michaels and WWE. So how did his unforgettable return in 2010 come to be?
On his Confessions Of The Hitman podcast (h/t WrestlingInc.com), Hart explained that he chose to return because he simply wanted to "make peace". The Montreal Screwjob and the tragic death of his younger brother, Owen Hart, began to wear on the WWE Hall of Famer.
So he gave WWE Vice President Kevin Dunn a call, and the rest is history:
"I said, 'I'm tired. Everywhere I go, all I hear about is The Screwjob, what happened with my brother, Owen. All of that starts to weigh you down. I mean, it really starts to weigh you down.
Like, it was really starting to wear on me all the time. It's like, it's all I ever hear about: Vince McMahon, and The Screwjob, and 'what are you going to do now?' Anyway, it just got to the point where it's like-- I think it was the solution to all my problems at the time.
It was like, the best way for me to get over this, get it out of my way so it's not in my way anymore is to go back and make peace with it, make real peace with it, and I pretty much laid it out on the table to Kevin Dunn that I'd like to go back and do a storyline."
Hart also expressed a wish to "bury the hatchet with" Michaels (which they did on the Jan. 4 episode of Raw), as the two used to be close friends. The former waited several months to hear back until he managed to schedule a meeting with Vince. They discussed several options and ultimately agreed to a feud, highlighted by a match at WrestleMania XXVI.
Thanks to the help from some of his family members, Hart easily defeated McMahon to finally avenge the Montreal Screwjob. He would stick on as the GM of Raw for a brief period and even competed in a handful of matches, finally putting the bitter incident behind him for good.
Hart's Return Marked A Special Moment In WWE History
The Montreal Screwjob was a controversial moment that affected the WWE for many years. Nobody emerged as a winner from this incident. Thankfully, Hart, McMahon and Michaels were able to "bury the hatchet" and put all of the bitter feelings to rest. Hart's return was a moving moment, and as he stressed on his podcast, "forgiving is important."